The End
by Subject 0
Summary: Shepard comes face to face with the Catalyst and is given one final ultimatum - destroy the Reapers or control them. But which option will she choose? Will she even choose? One-shot.


After finishing Mass Effect 3, I sat back for a while and pondered the ending. To be honest, I was happy with the ending for the most part. I didn't mind the fact that Shepard was given an ultimatum of three very different choices; I thought it was cleverly done. I also didn't mind the treatment of the love interest landing on another planet. The one thing that did seem strange to me, however, was the interaction between Shepard and the Catalyst. This is just a very short story about how I envisioned things would go down with my Renegade Shep. Wrote this while I was really tired, but I hope you enjoy anyways!

* * *

><p>"… Who are you?"<p>

"I," the translucent figure announced, its voice soft yet striking deep to her core, "Am the Catalyst."

Her brows wrinkled and her expression twisted with confusion. "You're the Catalyst?" she asked breathlessly, barely able to keep her half-lidded eyes open. "I thought the Catalyst was the Citadel."

"It is. And the Citadel is a part of me."

The Catalyst took the form of a boy, the same boy that haunted her dreams, the one who she watched die on Earth. But questioning its choice of form seemed inappropriate for the time, and her thoughts fixed back to her mission: stop the Reapers. "How can I stop the Reapers? I need to stop the Reapers."

"The Reapers are mine," it said coolly. "I control them, and they are a part of me." The hologram turned and walked away from Shepard, whose immediate response was disbelief.

"What? How are the Reapers yours?" She followed the Catalyst's trail, hobbling, bleeding, dying. Her wounds were severe, and every step drew her closer to death. She could feel it surrounding her, clouding her vision from the peripherals. There wasn't much time left, and she knew it.

"I am their leader, and they are my solution."

"Solution to what?"

"Chaos."

"Stop the cryptic dramatics and get to the damn point," she muttered between clenched teeth.

Unphased by her bluntness, the Catalyst answered, "You bring chaos upon yourselves. The created will always rebel against their creators."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Organics will always be destroyed by their creations. They will surpass organic life in intelligence, in capability, in productivity, in every field imaginable, until at last organics are inert. The Reapers are the answer to this synthetic evolution. We are your salvation through destruction. By harvesting advanced organic life before it can create synthetics that advance far beyond them, we save the galaxy. We allow the cycle of organic life to continue. We are your saviors."

She stared at the Catalyst, utterly shocked and disgusted. A rumble came from the back of her throat and she growled, "That's sick."

"It is the only way to preserve organic life in the galaxy. Without us to stop you, synthetic life would take you over; just as the geth have the quarians. We are your only option. We are your only…"

"Bullshit," she interrupted. "Organics and synthetics can live peacefully together. One doesn't have to kill the other in order to survive."

"Every civilization in the past three million years that we have purged reached its critical point of synthetic evolution before we intervened. Had they continued, they would have been eradicated."

"That doesn't mean we will," said Shepard. "Just because it happened to the others, doesn't mean it'll happen to us. You're denying us our future because others like us screwed up? You don't have the right."

"An admirable, but ultimately flawed line of thinking," the Catalyst hummed, almost smugly. "You cannot stop the wheels that have been set in motion. You will fight as hard as you will against synthetic evolution, but you will never…"

"Never what? Never truly win? Never achieve peace?" Shepard snapped. "There wasn't any fucking peace when synthetics weren't around either. The Rachni Wars, the Krogan Rebellions, the First Contact War – people have been killing each other since the dawn of time. If we have to constantly fight with synthetics to live, so be it. We don't need Reapers to 'save' us through eradication. We can handle that just fine ourselves."

"The synthetics will outclass you. They will outnumber and outmaneuver you. And in the end, they will rebel and destroy you. But now, with the completion of the Crucible, there are new possibilities."

She squinted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You want to destroy us. With the Crucible's power, you can. You can wipe out all synthetic life in the galaxy, including the geth. The Reapers will be destroyed, but know that once the cycle has been broken, your species will be doomed to extinction by synthetic hands. I won't stop you from making this decision. On the other hand, you can choose to control the Reapers with the Crucible and…"

"Stop it. I'm not going to play into your game any longer."

"This is no game. This is the future of the Reapers you…"

"I'm in no decision to make this choice. I'm one person. I can't speak for the entirety of the galaxy."

"If you do not choose, your species will be wiped out one way or another, by the Reapers or by the synthetics who serve you."

"How many times do I have to tell you you're wrong?" murmured Shepard, her anger growing.

"I am not. I have seen this occur…"

"Listen here, you piece of holographic shit," Shepard crassly interrupted. Pointing into space, the Commander shouted, "You know who's out there fighting with us against your 'solution'? The geth. _Synthetics._"

"It is but a momentary armistice. It will come to pass when…"

"You have no fucking idea if it will pass or not. Nobody does."

"I am capable of…"

"Shut up. Just shut up. I'm sick and tired of you Reapers. Just because you're made out of shinier metals makes you think that you're superior to us in every way imaginable. You Reapers may be far more advanced than anything else in the galaxy, but you still bleed. And you still die. You're still mortal, just like us. Where we age and wither away, you rust and degrade. You aren't omniscient gods who know better than we do. You're just machines made to destroy." She paused to regain her composure. "I'm not going to pretend like I know if synthetics will or won't eventually overpower us, and I'm not going to pretend that I know we won't end up like all the civilizations before us. But the fact that the geth and the quarians, that EDI and Joker, that synthetics and organics – the fact that we've managed to keep the peace so far shows that there's hope. And that's the one thing that separates us from you, that's why you can't understand us at all. Because you can't program hope."

There was a long silence, followed at last by Shepard's weak, yet unwavering voice.

"This peace we're brokering may not last forever. We may never reach a future where synthetics and organics can live peacefully together. The end may come the way you described it, with the age of man crashing down to its knees at the hands of synthetics. But who the _fuck _are you to deny us the chance of trying anyways? Who are you to dictate who lives and who dies? Who are you to decide that we can't _try_, that we can't _hope_ for a better future? We aren't machines that mindlessly follow orders, or dogs who keel over and die. We're humans. We're violent, stupid, stubborn bastards, everyone us. But we never give up – and we _always_ find another way. _Always."_

"Shepard…"

"So keep your damn options to yourself. I won't be the puppet in your stupid marionette show any longer. That's… that's _my _choice…"

And, with a short, final breath, Shepard felt the world around her collapse as her eyes closed shut.


End file.
